Loading…

Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East is unavailable, but you can change that!

This book deals with the concept of justice and righteousness in ancient Israelite literature in comparison with identical concepts in ancient Near East. Various aspects of this concept are taken into consideration: philological, historical, sociological and theological. Moshe Weinfeld surveys social reforms in the ancient Near East from the third millennium BCE to the Hellenistic period. The...

silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals” (8:5–6). The last verse refers to those who are enslaved for non-payment of debts. This concept of משפט וצדקה is clearly expressed by Isaiah. After the parable of the vineyard, which ends: “he hoped for justice (משפט); for equity (צדק, lit. “righteousness”), but behold, iniquity, (עצקה, lit. “crying out”) (Isa. 5:7),33 we find an indictment of landowners who enlarge their estates: “Ah, those who add house to house and join field to field, till there is
Page 37